Door edge protection devices for motor vehicle doors have edge protection bodies which are arranged inside the door body in the vicinity of the opening door edge and, when the door is opened, pivot around the door edge and surround this, so that, when the door is opened further, the door edge is protected from bumps against adjacent vehicles or other obstacles, such as trees, walls, etc., so as not to be damaged.
Edge protection body devices of this type are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,221,411, DE 19934404, DE 10215903, DE 102004031798 and WO 2005/021305. These edge protection devices have the disadvantage that the edge protection body, when it is moved out of the position of rest with the door closed, executes predominantly a rotation of approximately 180° about an axis parallel to the door edge or parallel to the vehicle longitudinal axis when the door is then opened. However, since the door edge of a motor vehicle door is usually not designed to be straight, but curved, in the known devices the edge protection bodies cannot be designed with an elongate contour adapted to the edge contour, but, instead, can protect only a narrowly limited region of the edge. Furthermore, these are sometimes complicated structures taking up a large amount of space.
DE 9405958 U1 discloses an edge protection device in which the edge protection device is mounted twofold, the mounting which faces away from the door edge being a linear guide which at the same time serves for driving the edge protection device, while the mounting which faces the door edge takes place by means of an intermediate lever which is mounted on the door and which, during the forward/backward movement of the drive, causes a pivoting movement of the edge protection device about the door edge. The disadvantage of this is that the pivoting movement does not make it possible to move the edge protection device around the entire door edge, since, because of the linear drive, the intermediate lever can execute only a pivoting movement of less than 180°. However, it is necessary for the door edge to be surrounded in this way by the door edge protection member if the door edge is to be effectively protected, particularly in the case of sharp corners and edges against which the door is opened.